Quirky App Of The Day: Bring On The Artillery In Cannonball Cow Tipping

Cannonball Cow Tipping ($0.99) by julian matthews is an arcade game that brings some heavy-duty artillery to the playing field. You’ve made a bet with your friends that you can tip some cows. Now, you have a problem. It’s pretty obvious that one person can’t tip a cow by himself. Those things weigh a thousand pounds. You need to get some help so that you don’t look like an idiot in front of your friends. Your solution is to use an antique cannon and cannonballs to knock the cows over. Brilliant.

You take your cannon out to the pasture, and set it up in a comfortable spot. You can see the cows moseying along in front of you. It’s all too easy. This bet is won for sure. That is, until you try to fire the cannon. It’s an antique after all, and that means it’s complicated.

To fire the cannon, there’s a sliding gauge with a cannonball on it. You slide the cannonball up to the top and then back to where you want it. The little notches along the gauge indicate how far the cannonball will fly. Releasing the cannonball on the lower end of the scale makes the ball fly a short distance. The higher notches will reach the back of the playing field. To aim the cannonball, tilt your iDevice to whichever side you want it to fly.

You don’t have an unlimited amount of cannonballs. You begin with 30 for tipping 10 cows. Running out of cannonballs is one way to end the game. However, as you level up, you’ll receive more cannonballs per level since you’ll be required to tip more cows.

Another way to end the game is to hit the bulls. They’re gray, have horns, and blink.They’re pretty obvious. You have five lives at the start of the game. Whenever you hit a bull, you lose a life. Losing all five lives will end the game.

I love the idea of knocking cows over with a cannon. I’m going to pretend that it doesn’t hurt them, and that they choose to flop over dramatically like in cartoons. It’s all in good fun. Although, I am curious if I need to state that no animals were harmed during the making of this app.

Cannonball Cow Tipping is a universal app, and it’s available in the App Store for $0.99.